Monash Art Design and Architecture's XYX Lab is a team of experienced design researchers exploring gender-sensitive design practices and theory. Operating at the intersection of gender, identity, urban space and advocacy, researchers come together with planners, policy makers, local government and stakeholders to make tangible the experiences of underrepresented communities in urban space and planning.

In 2021 Routledge published Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space edited by researchers from the XYX Lab. The book positions design as a central component in how cities produce, construct, represent and materialise gendered spatial practices, it brings together practice and theory to critique, question and enable solutions that challenge the root causes of gender inequalities in cities. Through a rich array of case-studies, practice-led interventions, and historical and theoretical perspectives, it examines important issues that affect the ways in which women, and people of diverse gender and sexual identities experience and participate in cities.